“Bosh!” said Dan emphatically.  “One can always tell if a person is to be trusted or not.”

“Well, I can tell that I shall not trust Anna ever,” cried Betty viciously, roused to deep anger by Dan’s championship of Anna Pike.

But Dan was not impressed.  “Oh well,” he said, turning carelessly on his heel, “if you are so narrow-minded and have made up your mind not to like her, it is no use to say anything more.”

“I am not narrow-minded,” cried Betty hotly.  “I don’t know what you mean.”

“I don’t suppose you do,” laughed Dan.  “Never mind.  Cheer up, Elizabeth, I will give you a dictionary on your birthday.”

“No, you won’t, ’cause you won’t have money enough,” said Betty; “and—­ and I wouldn’t accept it if you got it.”

“I’ll leave you my old one when I go to school, and I advise you to study it well before you go to Miss Richards’s.  It may save you from putting your foot in it sometimes.”

“I wonder,” said Betty, with a sudden thought, “if it would tell me what self-confidence is?”

“I can tell you that,” said Dan.  “Why do you want to know?”

“Oh—­oh, because—­but tell me first what it means, and then I will tell you—­perhaps.”

“Well, it means—­oh—­you know—­”

“No, I don’t; and—­and I don’t believe you do either,” nodding her head very knowingly at her brother.

“Yes, I do,” cried Dan hotly.  “It means having a too jolly good opinion of yourself, and thinking you can do anything.  Now, tell me why you wanted to know.”

But Betty was walking away with her head held very high, and her cheeks very red.  “I think it is quite time you started for the station to meet Aunt Pike and Anna,” she called back over her shoulder.

“Don’t be late, whatever you do.”

“But you are coming too, Bet, aren’t you?”

“No,” she answered frigidly, as she closed the door, “I am not,” and to herself she added, with proud indignation, “After Aunt Pike’s calling me such a name as that, I shouldn’t think of going to meet her.”

Kitty, Dan, and Tony were on the platform when the train arrived.  Their father had expressly wished them to go to meet their aunt and cousin, as he was unable to; so they went to please him, they told each other.  But they would put up with a good deal for the sake of a jaunt to the station, and there really was some little anxiety and excitement, too, in their hearts as to what Anna would be like.

When she had stayed with them before she had been a little fair, slight thing, with a small face, frightened restless eyes, and a fragile body as restless as her eyes.  Anna Pike gave one the impression of being all nerves, and in a perpetual state of tremor.  She was said to be very clever and intellectual, and certainly if being always with a book was a proof of it, she was; but there were some who thought she did little with her books beyond holding them, and that it would have been better for her in every way if she had sometimes held a doll, or a skipping-rope, or a branch of a tree instead.